UPDATE: Car hit guy wire to crack pole at Brass Ball Corners

The odd looking damage to a utility pole Friday afternoon at Brass Ball Corners in Paddock Lake was caused by a car hitting a guy wire, a We Energies spokesman said.

The incident happened a little before 3 p.m. Ultimately, We Energies crews were on the scene until after 1 a.m. that night completing the pole replacement, with traffic detoured at the scene while the crews worked.

Barry McNulty, a We Energies spokesman, said the break was unusual in that the guy wire — which anchors the top of the pole — was struck instead of the pole itself. The impact to the wire caused a section of about 15 feet between the top and bottom of the pole to break away.

The incident did cause a loss of power to about 3,000 customers. All power was restored within 80 minutes. Salem School was affected by the outage.

“We had to de-energize the lines in order to safely work on the damaged equipment and remove debris from the incident …,” McNulty said. “We were able to reduce the number of customers affected quickly by re-routing of power through other power lines that flow to customers.”

The need to block westbound traffic on Highway 50 at the intersection cause significant traffic back-ups for a while.